Stephen Deas » The King’s Assassin

Where’s My Book? (13/12/2012)

Stephen — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:06:02 +0000

Possibly I should have posted this under Critical Failures…

Dear frustrated US readers who keep asking where they can get hold of the thief-taker books over on that side of the Atlantic. Look, frankly I share your pain. You’d have thought as the author I’d be the one person most likely to know. Well up to a point I do – you can get the first two from Amazon if you don’t mind getting the kindle edition. Amazon lists what appears to be a paperback US edition of The Warlock’s Shadow due to come out in June next year. Why the second one of three is coming out but not the first, I have no idea. I can tell you the reasons for all the delay and uncertainty: no US publisher wants to take it on. Allegedly my UK publisher has now given up and is distributing to the US via Trafalgar Books who do this sort of thing all the time. Can I find them there? No. If anyone out there has any kind of answer, do please share it so I can share it in turn. I realise there aren’t that many of you out there who care, but if you get as far as reading this, sorry: I really wish I could be more help.

Yours,

Frustrated author.

Post-Script. It’s been pointed out below that you can order copies of the UK editions for anywhere in the world from The Book Depository. Shipping is free (or included in the price anyway) to most countries.

King’s Assassin – First Review (10/11/12)

Stephen — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:21:23 +0000

Sometimes I think The King’s Assassin is the weakest of the three thief-taker books, sometimes I’m not so sure, but it’s nice to have another opinion.

Other news…? Lots, but it’s all secret. Still.

I may have some Game of Thrones stuff to give away soon. Prepare your Mitt Romney names.

Also, possibly coming soon; Zafir, agony aunt.

The King’s Assassin Giveaway (15/10/12)

Stephen — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:52:44 +0000

A few days from now The King’s Assassin officially comes out, so this week I’m going to give a copy away. It’ll be a trade paperback edition.I’m sorry to say that there WON’T be a hardback edition from Gollancz. For anyone who’s been collecting the hardbacks (and even if none of the rest of you haven’t, *I* have), this is a bit of a pisser. I know other authors affected by this trend, and it particularly sucks when it’s the last in a series. Still, it is what it is and there’s nothing I can do about it except go and buy a couple of hundred copies of my own books. Which I won’t.

There’s also a freebie novella up on the Gollancz blog – a prelude to The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice. I’ll put a PDF up here shortly.

Usual deal – comment on this post and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of he book. In order to enter, comment on this post before 21st October. No challenge this week because I’m sulking. Amuse me.

You can be as rude as you like as long as you’re not libellous. The gods of random don’t care. But if you make me laugh I might send an exciting bonus goody your way[1]. Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far.

Dragon Queen rewrite is about half done. It’s getting bigger. There are some nice reviews starting to show up for The Black Mausoleum. More on both soon. Other projects I can’t talk about are now up to four and involve four works in progress about which I cannot speak, so that’s why not much seems to be happening (although most of my time is on the rewrite right now).

[1] Exciting bonus goody not guaranteed to be exciting

The King’s Assassin (October 2012 UK)

Stephen — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:13:03 +0000

When Berren makes the mistake of stealing a purse from a thief-taker, it should have condemned him to a short and brutal life in the slave-mines. When the thief-taker offers to train him as an apprentice instead, he can’t believe his luck; but the thief-taker has secrets of his own, scars of a faraway war filled with mercenary soldiers, necromancers who brew potions that can change your destiny, and a psychotic girl-princess with a penchant for cutting pieces out of her lovers’ souls.

First review from Fantasy Book Critic is pleasantly flattering: “…arguably the author’s best at least since his still awesome debut The Adamantine Palace…”

A Sniff of Sodium Hydride (20/9/2011)

Stephen — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:35:49 +0000

Status update. Haven’t had one of these for a while. Why’s that? Oh, right, because I haven’t been WRITING for a while. Stupid summer holidays. Stupid day-job. Ah well, back to normal soon.

It’s become pretty clear that Dragon Queen is going to need a total rewrite. Which is OK, and for which it will be much improved. Partly this has become clear because of what’s going on with The King’s Assassin, which has made a couple of things obvious, and partly because of the Gazetteer. Mental note: write gazetteer first next time

The King’s Assassin is close to being ready to submit. The gazetteer is useable and will come with hyperlinks this time (not that any of you care, but it’s for me, not for you, for MEEEE and some serious shit is about to hit a serious writing fan in a week or so whent he day-job finally goes away FOREVER[1] as I beat Dragon Queen into shape for the end of the year and draft out the first third of … uh … some other thing that we shall call the Sodium Hydride project. More of which later.

And finally, summer saw the publication of what will almost certainly be my best-selling words for a very long time – the introduction to the Gollancz 50th birthday edition of Pat Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind. Rumour has it Pat may be coming to the UK in November. You are all to welcome him in your viking suits.

Er… and then I had a bored moment at some point…

[1] A couple of months

No News (2/3/2011)

Stephen — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:46:42 +0000

There was going to be a long post about the Jorvik Viking festival today, filled with juicy facts and photos of people covered in lots of metal hitting each other with more metal. It’s certainly the first time I’ve seen sparks really fly when two fellows have at each other with swords and the whole experience was quite educational for anyone wanting (as I do) an understanding of the evolution of military tactics and technology in the middle ages.

But then some stuff came up that was more exciting. MUCH more exciting. And rather appropriate to the setting but sadly I can’t talk about it just yet. There will be an announcement at the start of April, and that’s all I can say. In the mean time, I leave you with the facts that the vikings used to wash their hair in horse piss to burn the nits out, which is why they often had yellow hair, and that a certain kind of parasitic worm was rife that just wandered around inside viking bodies as it pleases. So add to your generic picture of a viking a strong scent of horse wee and maybe a worm hanging out of his eye. Yum.

Proof-reading for The Order of the Scales is done. Working on The Kings Assassin now – should have a finished first draft in the next couple of weeks. No flying castles in this one, but a nasty, nasty little girl.

There’s also a nasty rumour going around that Diamond Cascade was eaten by a sand-shark while I wasn’t looking. There. Will. Be. Trouble.